Wilco: The Coffee makes its grand debut; dads everywhere ecstatic they don’t have to go to the Bucks anymore

You’ve got your Wilco albums (CD, vinyl, and digital), your Wilco t-shirts, your Wilco hooded sweatshirt, your Wilco hats, posters, DVDs, DNA collection, and you just finished eating your Wilco sandwich and need a tasty beverage to wash down your delicious meal. Well, until they create and market Wilco Water (coming June 2011), the best choice you got is a cup of brand new Wilco Coffee.

Yep, that’s right, Wilco brand coffee is coming soon to a caffeine retailer near you. Here’s a quick review: “The aromatics of coffee blossom and violet make way for an incredibly graceful and elegant cup. The body has a light and silky quality, like fresh whipped cream, that beautifully compliments the ever-present note of citron, juniper berry and vanilla. As it cools, the cup blossoms into notes of confectioner’s sugar, rosehips, and soft raisin, resonating on a pristine finish with a touch of milk chocolate.”

MMMM! That sounds delicious! Can I have some? I can if I just go to Wilco’s website.

Now that Wilco have taken two steps (the sandwich and the coffee) away from “traditional rock band merchandise,” what can we expect in the future? Here are my ideas:

It has gotten to the point where it’s not that Ra Ra Riot can’t stop touring, it’s that they don’t know how. Also, they’re probably homeless at this point, so it just makes sense for them to stay on the road as long as possible. Thankfully, 2011 will provide them with more opportunities to do so, as the Syracuse, NY-based band has already announced tourdates for January 2011 supporting this year’s The Orchard (TMT Review). Check them out below, along with their last remaining dates for 2010:

Like most of the liberal types who read this here website, you’re probably one of those tree-hugging types who wants to ensure that our planet isn’t a complete hellhole by the time your pubes turn white. Well, cool, because Thom Yorke (of 90s one-hit wonders Radiohead) feels the same way you do; in fact, he wants you to get off your lazy ass and do something about it. But what can a disenfranchised citizen, like yourself, do? According to Yorke, make some art.

Over the weekend, Yorke made a special request on Radiohead’s official website: “WANTED 2000 people who want to be part of human King Cnut type image facing the sea that is visible from space as part of the Earth350.”

It’s a confusing request, I know, so let me explain. Earth 350 is an art project aided and abetted by Yorke with the goal of creating “massive public art installations to show how climate change is already impacting our world as well as offer visions of how we can solve the crisis.” The installation will assemble a group of people so large that it’ll be visible from space, thus signaling to extraterrestrial beings that we — like the old Norwegian King Canute who Yorke references — can control the waves, too.

Earth 350 is being put together so that the citizens of the Earth are educated about climate change and are prepared to make their voice heard at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which be held in Cancun, Mexico (“Last one in the pool is a ‘creep’!”) this year between November 29 through December 10. So, if you live in Brighton, England, want your picture taken via satellite, but mostly don’t want to miss a chance to meet Thom Yorke, then register here.

Magical Swedish pop unicorn Lykke Li has set a date for the release of her sophomore album, Wounded Rhymes. It’s slated for a March 1, 2011 release on her own LL Recordings, with production by the Bjorn in Peter Bjorn and John. Wounded Rhymes is the follow-up to 2008’s Youth Novels (TMT Review). Lykke Li conceived of the album while on a vision quest in the California desert. (Okay, that’s just a guess, but when you think about it, isn’t the process of LIFE a vision quest? I know: WHOA, right?)

Written in Los Angeles and recorded in Stockholm, the new album was inspired by Leonard Cohen, This Mortal Coil, Alan Lomax’s field recordings, and more. She’s playing a sold-out show on December 1 in New York, but most of us will have to wait until spring for some live Lykke.

Just in time to offset the mind-crushing tedium of the start of another work week, here comes news of The Greatest Tour of Our Time. Details are scant, but the only one that matters is that CEE LO AND BIG BOI ARE GOING ON TOUR TOGETHER!!!!!!!!! OMG! If that announcement didn’t just make you dance a little bit in your chair, you’d better check your pulse, because you are probably dead. Sorry, that’s just the way it is.

The “Georgia Power” tour, as it shall be called, has no official dates lined up just quite yet. All in due time, grasshopper. Cee Lo is riding high off the success of his new album The Lady Killer and Big Boi’s recent-ish solo debut Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty* (TMT Review) is still making waves.

Wolves in the Throne Room have grown tired of lording over metal from their icy, mountain-top throne room and have announced (through howling proclamation) that they will be heading to Europe to play a series of shows. In addition to the tour, the pack will also be performing various coordinated track-and-kill hunts on elk and reindeer throughout the European mainland.

The biggest show that the boys have planned is most definitely ATP’s Nightmare Before Christmas, which is curated by Godspeed You! Black Emperor and features Neurosis, Black Dice, Dead C, The Ex, Throbbing Gristle, Deerhoof, Charlemagne Palestine, and “Weird Al” Yankovic, who I would never call a nightmare but rather a dream come true.

Large groups of Wolvaniacs this side of the Atlantic are going to feel let down by The Wolves’ lack of shows in the US, but there is one scheduled show in Seattle playing with Neurosis and plenty more are being planned. Watch out prey animals in North America: the Wolves in the Throne Room are coming for you.